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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29789610">Tango Tragique</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_of_the_Refrigerator/pseuds/Lady_of_the_Refrigerator'>Lady_of_the_Refrigerator</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Blacklist (US TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Eventual Smut, F/M, Mild Kink, Porn With Plot, Season/Series 08, Season/Series 08 Spoilers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 07:41:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,401</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29789610</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_of_the_Refrigerator/pseuds/Lady_of_the_Refrigerator</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“What changed, Elizabeth? When did it become more important that I die as quickly as possible, rather than give up my secrets? You know most of them will die with me. Aren’t <i>they</i> much more… tempting… than ending my life?”</p>
<p>Red’s heart skipped a beat when Lizzy darted forward as if she was about to steal a kiss, but she stopped short a hair’s breadth away from touching him.</p>
<p>[Vague-ish S8 Spoilers]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Elizabeth Keen/Raymond Reddington</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>109</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Red heard the telltale sound of a gun safety clicking off right as he raised his arm to hang up his hat. He sighed. So much for a quiet evening. He let his eyes fall shut for just a moment so he could steel himself before he spoke. </p>
<p>“Elizabeth,” he said, then slowly turned around; Lizzy was lurking in the shadows, her gun pointed squarely in the center of his chest. </p>
<p>She looked well. Or at least better than his anxious fears had been trying to convince him was likely. </p>
<p>“You made a big mistake not having Dembe secure the apartment before you sent him away,” she said, staring him straight in the eye.</p>
<p>“Are you here to finally put me out of my misery?” Red asked. “You could wait a few months, save yourself the trouble. And the blood on your hands.”</p>
<p>Lizzy’s aim didn’t falter despite the irreverent nonchalance of what he said… but she also didn’t fire. Curious, that. </p>
<p>Curiouser still, she hadn’t chosen to fire in those crucial moments when she had actually caught him unawares. Her stance was true, her grip solid, but her finger wasn’t even on the trigger. </p>
<p>Perhaps there was still a chance Red could talk his way through this, if only he could figure out a way to dispel her anger long enough to have a proper conversation. </p>
<p>“Why are you just standing there?” Lizzy asked, when he watched her in silence for a little too long. “Aren’t you gonna defend yourself, pull your gun on me?”</p>
<p>Red shook his head; Lizzy looked disappointed, impatient.</p>
<p>“Come on. You must still have it on you. I bet it’s in that—” her gaze dropped to Red’s belt and then rose to again to meet his eyes—“holster you like so much.”</p>
<p>“I don’t see the point,” he said. “Whether I live or die tonight is up to you. You know I won’t shoot you.”</p>
<p>“Not even to save your own life?”</p>
<p>“No. And I won’t give you the psychological cover to claim I might, either.”</p>
<p>There was a pregnant pause before Lizzy took a step forward and laid her gun on the side table, as if it was something casual and harmless like her cellphone or a glass of wine rather than a lethal weapon she ostensibly brought with the intent to use against him. </p>
<p>Red wondered if she had another weapon, if leaving her gun on the table was meant to give him a false sense of security. Perhaps she had a knife hidden somewhere on her person, or even a pen—which would do the trick well enough if she could stomach using it as easily now as she could in the beginning.</p>
<p>Lizzy strode across the room then, stopping when she was close enough for Red to smell the lotion she used for the stubborn dry skin on her elbows. The lotion he’d recommended during a meeting one winter night years ago, when the itch had bothered her enough to be a distraction. (He’d always had good luck with the lotion on his back. He hadn’t told her that.)</p>
<p>She stood there in complete silence, much too close, for what felt like a small eternity. Red’s mind sifted through numerous possible scenarios about what she might do next, but nothing he considered came anywhere near to the truth. </p>
<p>No, his thoughts had led him in the wrong direction entirely, too focused on what she could do to hurt him <em>physically</em>. Because before Red had even processed the feeling of her skin on his, Lizzy had reached out for his hands, brought them up to her own neck, and pressed his fingers into her flesh.</p>
<p>He took a breath, and let it out.</p>
<p>It had been such a long time since he touched her, such a long time since he held her, but this… He didn’t want to hold her like <em>this</em>. It felt so wrong, he would’ve recoiled if he wasn’t so shocked by it.</p>
<p>“Good job,” she said, her voice low and jeering. “You caught me.”</p>
<p>“Elizabeth, what on earth?”</p>
<p>“Don’t play dumb, Red. I tried to kill you. I betrayed you. This is how you deal with people who’ve betrayed you, isn’t it?” She dug his fingers deeper into her neck. “You like to make it personal. Intimate. The more profound the betrayal, the more intimate the kill.”</p>
<p>Red pulled his hands away as if he’d been scalded. “Enough.” </p>
<p>“Coward,” she spat.</p>
<p>“If I wanted to kill you, Elizabeth, you would’ve been dead long ago. It doesn’t matter how hard you try, you’re not going to goad me into changing my mind on this.”</p>
<p>“Why? You’ve killed people for a hell of a lot less than what I’ve done to you.”</p>
<p>“You know why.”</p>
<p>“Because you care about me. You cared about Grey. You cared about Smokey. You cared about Mr. Kaplan. Why am I always an exception?” she asked, rapping her fist against the solid wall of his chest in her frustration.</p>
<p>Red studied her face, the furrow between her brows, the stubborn set of her mouth. “Are you really disappointed I won’t kill you? Last time I checked, I was supposed to be the one with a death wish.”</p>
<p>“You’re avoiding the question, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”</p>
<p>Red tried to move past Lizzy to the left and to the right, but she blocked him each time, eventually grabbing him around the neck and walking him backwards until they hit the wall behind him. </p>
<p>And it was in that moment that Red’s body betrayed him, deciding entirely without his permission to read Lizzy’s actions not as a threat, but as something… else.</p>
<p>Her eyes narrowed. She tightened her grip—just a little, just a taste of what she could do if she truly wanted to—and Red’s breath caught in his chest, his heart starting to beat in double time.</p>
<p>“You like that,” she said, with an odd, eager curiosity.</p>
<p>Red held her gaze, knowing that his pupils told the same story as his pulse. “This isn’t new information for you, if you’ve been paying attention. And I know you have, considering it’s your pet project to unravel me. Or at least it used to be.”</p>
<p>He leaned in against her restraining fingers and her nostrils flared, her cheeks began to flush, her own pupils started to widen. </p>
<p>“What changed, Elizabeth? When did it become more important that I die as quickly as possible, rather than give up my secrets? You know most of them will die with me. Aren’t <em>they</em> much more… tempting… than ending my life?”</p>
<p>Red’s heart skipped a beat when Lizzy darted forward as if she was about to steal a kiss, but she stopped short a hair’s breadth away from touching him. Her breath was warm and humid on his mouth when she spoke.</p>
<p>“Why am I special?” she said, eyes glued to his lips.</p>
<p>“Elizabeth—”</p>
<p>“<em>Tell me</em>,” she demanded, her fingers squeezing for a moment. “Haven’t you drawn this out long enough? Everyone dies before I find out the truth. Now you will, too. Does that make you happy? That I’ll never know? That the unanswered questions are going to make me lose my mind?” As a bitter afterthought, she added, “What’s left of it, anyway.”</p>
<p>“It doesn’t make me happy, no,” he said. “Not much of anything makes me happy these days.”</p>
<p>“Because of me. Because of what I’ve done to you.”</p>
<p>“Because of what you’ve done to yourself,” he said, deadly serious. “I couldn’t care less about what you’ve done to me in comparison to that.”</p>
<p>Lizzy’s mouth snapped shut, the arguments she’d come prepared to make evaporating into the ether. She hadn’t expected Red to challenge her assertion that way. She didn’t know how to respond to the real him anymore and not the selfish, uncaring bastard she’d built him up to be since he decided to kill Katarina in front of her. </p>
<p>Well, so be it. People were complex, Red more so than most. Lizzy would have to deal with the cognitive dissonance.</p>
<p>He took advantage of her momentary lapse in concentration to try to push a bit further—if she felt unbalanced, if she lost the upper hand, perhaps any doubts she might have could sway her from her goal.</p>
<p>“Tell me Agnes is safe,” he said, and Lizzy suppressed a flinch.</p>
<p>“You know she is,” she snapped, more than a little offended, both at the implication and at the idea that he was trying to turn the confrontation around on her. </p>
<p>“I don’t know anything of the sort.”</p>
<p>She shoved at him. She was <em>supposed</em> to be the one in control, and yet here he was, not only unbothered by the threat of her hands around his neck, but nearly reveling in her aggression. “<em>How dare you—</em>” </p>
<p>“How dare I? How dare <em>you</em>?” he said. “How am I supposed to know you’re not skipping blithely along in your mother’s footsteps? Exactly what reassurances do I have? Especially considering everything you’ve done since she died has—”</p>
<p>“Since you killed her!”</p>
<p>“Especially considering everything you’ve done <em>since I killed her</em> has been morally questionable <em>at best</em> and at worst diametrically opposed to the ideals you’ve clung to so tightly for as long as I’ve been in your life.”<br/> <br/>“Who the hell do you think you are, questioning my morality?”</p>
<p>“Elizabeth, I know you—”</p>
<p>“No, you don’t!” she interrupted, her words clipped and sharp enough to echo in Red’s ears. She wedged her knee between his legs and pushed him back against the wall as far as she possibly could, with the bulk of her weight and strength working to hold him there.</p>
<p>“You don’t know who I am anymore, Red. You know who you think I am, but that Liz is long gone. She thought she could put her trust in you and <em>eventually</em> you’d deign to reveal the whole truth to her. She thought you wanted to be her guide through the darkness she was drowning in,” Lizzy said, her voice near to breaking, “but somewhere along the line your secrets became more important than helping her find her way back to the light. You let her flail around on her own instead, treading water, so desperate for answers that <em>any</em> hope of finding them seemed better than the torment of not knowing.”</p>
<p>Red’s focus started to slip despite himself as Lizzy spoke; their position should’ve been painful or menacing or at the very least an uncomfortable inconvenience, but the heat of her body circling his thigh was too captivating for it to be any of those things. </p>
<p>Too distracting. </p>
<p>He couldn’t afford to be distracted. Not now. Not with Lizzy’s fingers around his neck, her left thumbnail biting into the scarred flesh over his carotid. His body might find such a thing appealing, but his mind certainly should not… and yet it did. </p>
<p>“I don’t know what you want me to say.”</p>
<p>“Red, I’ve been so lost. So confused. I used to think we were close, but no matter what I did, no matter how <em>good</em> I was, no matter what we’d done together, or how much you claimed to care about me, you never let me in. I can’t keep living like that. I can’t let you know me when you won’t let me know you. Not anymore.”</p>
<p>“And you’d rather I die than remain a living mystery.”</p>
<p>“No. But you’re gonna die anyway, aren’t you? And there’s nothing you or I can do about it.”</p>
<p>“So might as well get it over with? You know, I think it only qualifies as a mercy killing if both parties agree to it.” </p>
<p>Lizzy shook her head. “You don’t get it, do you? You don’t get why I want to end this.” </p>
<p>“No. I don’t. Explain it to me. Help me understand.”</p>
<p>“I figure if I can’t control you,” she said, drawing an inquisitive thumb over his bottom lip, “if I can’t make you tell me the truth, then at least I can be the reason you never do.”</p>
<p>Red shook his head in disbelief. “Elizabeth, that’s absurd. Surely there are more rational coping methods than that to deal with an eventual loss.”</p>
<p>“I tried rational, rational got me nowhere. Rational got me a man who claims to care about me so much he’d never hurt me, but refuses to tell me the truth about my past and his, and who constantly undermines my attempts to find the truth on my own. So you want to talk rational? What rational reason is there to keep me in the dark for so long? Or is it OK for you to be irrational, but not for me?</p>
<p>“I mean, my god. If you didn’t want to be known, you should’ve just stayed away and protected me from afar. You had to know that once you were in my life, I wouldn’t be able to put this aside. If you knew so much about me, you had to know that. My mind doesn’t let me let things go.”</p>
<p>“Elizabeth—”</p>
<p>“Don’t ‘Elizabeth’ me. I’m just so sick of it. I’m sick of everything. I’m sick of not knowing if the cases you bring us are straightforward and self-serving, or if you’re taking advantage of our resources to shut me out specifically. I’m sick of how the only things I know about you, the real you, are tidbits I can piece together from your tall tales that I don’t even know for sure I can believe,” she said. “I’m sick of how the only thing I can call you is my father’s name.”</p>
<p>“Why does that matter? You were perfectly content to allow yourself to believe I <em>was</em> your father.”</p>
<p>“For the same reason you flinched every time someone called me your daughter.”</p>
<p>“You’re in love with me,” Red said, simple and clear; the sheer panic in Lizzy’s eyes was almost comical. </p>
<p>“What? That’s—I—”</p>
<p>“You’re in love with me. If you hate having to call me your father’s name for the same reason I hate people thinking you’re my daughter, then you must be. Do you know how I know that?” She shook her head. “Because I’m in love with you. I have been for a long time. Even though I shouldn’t be. Even though it’s never been my place to be in love with you.” </p>
<p>Lizzy’s grip slackened as a breath left her body in surprised exhalation. She didn’t back away exactly, but some of the agitation in her stance faded. Red took a chance and raised his hands to rest on her hips, allowed his thumbs to stroke along her sides; a shiver ran through her body while she frantically searched his face.</p>
<p>“Why are you telling me this?”</p>
<p>“Because you’re right—you do deserve to know some truths before I die. Loving you wasn’t why I came into your life,” he confessed, “but it is why I’ve done everything—anything—I could to stay in it. That might not be enough for you, but it is the truth.”</p>
<p>She shook herself and cleared her throat. “If you loved me, you’d tell me everything I want to know.”</p>
<p>“My god, you’re like a dog with a bone,” Red said. “It’s because I love you that I <em>won’t</em> tell you.”</p>
<p>“The hell it is,” she said. “How does <em>that</em> make any sense?”</p>
<p>“You remember how you once believed if you gave me The Fulcrum that I would disappear? Well, I can’t help but fear that once you know everything I know, you’ll have no use for me anymore.”</p>
<p>Lizzy’s eyes flashed. “I can think of a few uses.”</p>
<p>“What, target practice?”</p>
<p>She pursed her lips, and shook her head—annoyed, but more at herself than at his flippant remark. “I can’t even pretend that isn’t fair,” she said. “Fuck.”</p>
<p>Red took a shuddery breath. He knew he was still playing with fire. He could feel it licking at his flesh like it had all those years ago, could feel it in the heat of her body, the pressure of her touch, the weight of her gaze, the unpredictable peril of her rage. </p>
<p>It didn’t matter. He couldn’t resist. </p>
<p>He drew his fingers up the small of her back and said, “Is <em>that</em> one of the uses?”</p>
<p>She blinked in surprise, and when her eyes locked with his again, there was a hunger in them, a wanting that thrummed in his chest. “What? Fucking?”</p>
<p>In a voice pitched low and provocative, he asked, “Do you want to fuck me, Agent Keen?”</p>
<p>Lizzy swallowed and ran her tongue over her lips, nearly predatory in her evaluation of him. “Yeah. Yeah, I do,” she said, her tone as husky and heavy as his own.</p>
<p>All of the air left his body at once. The verbal confirmation was almost too much for him to handle. He was used to the flirting and the insinuations—with all the plausible deniability that went along with them. He was used to Lizzy finding excuses to touch him, to linger close, to stare, but he wasn’t used to this… directness. </p>
<p>They’d been balanced on the blade of a knife for far too long, violence and sex bleeding into each other until the dividing line between the two had disappeared completely and one seemed just as good as the other to solve their conflicts.</p>
<p>It might be foolish to think it, but what if that was true? He couldn’t afford to allow himself to believe this was the solution to everything, but he also couldn’t allow himself to give up the hope that it could be. Or that it could be the beginning, at least. A new beginning.</p>
<p>“Now?” he asked.</p>
<p>“Yes, now. Yesterday. For years,” she said, bold and unashamed. “Why? Are you thinking of letting me?”</p>
<p>“Perhaps. Am I to trust that you won’t take advantage of my… vulnerability… to follow through with your desire for my speedy death? Or would your bloodlust be sated this time, perhaps, by <em>la petite mort</em> instead?”</p>
<p>“I won’t hurt you,” she said. “Unless you want me to.”</p>
<p>Red studied Lizzy, searching for any hints of dishonesty, but finding only openness, and a surprisingly sharp lust. </p>
<p>“I think I’ll choose to believe you, just this once,” he said, and her face broke into a smile.</p>
<p>It was a genuine smile, a beautiful smile. Not cold. Not calculating. So different than she’d been lately and yet so <em>familiar</em>, it made his heart ache. </p>
<p>Red raised a tentative hand to Lizzy’s cheek and his stomach jumped when she let him. Then she slid her hands up his neck to pull him close by the back of his head, crushing her mouth against his.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Red felt the weight of Lizzy’s gaze on him almost as tangibly as he could feel her fingers laced through his own as they made their way from his front room to his bedroom. </p>
<p>It wasn’t an especially long trek to his room, but she held his hand the whole way, even up the relatively cramped flight of stairs where it surely would’ve been easier to let him go. She didn’t seem to want to let him go.</p>
<p>There was a metaphor in there somewhere, but Red didn’t have the wherewithal to contemplate it at the moment. He was too caught up in the rather unlikely sudden turn of events to do so properly.</p>
<p>Lizzy’s attention was equal parts welcome and unnerving. Red wasn’t sure what she was looking for, exactly. He doubted he had changed all that much since she left. </p>
<p>He did know she sometimes had a difficult time hiding her fascination with him. He understood that. He’d been there plenty of times himself, especially where she was concerned. But the way she was looking at him tonight, like she thought he might disappear at any moment if she looked away, well… It was odd, considering she’d been actively trying to <em>make</em> him disappear for a while now.</p>
<p>Was this regret, perhaps? Had the prospect of hastening his demise finally lost some of its appeal? Red couldn’t say. </p>
<p>“Penny for your thoughts?” he prompted.</p>
<p>Lizzy shrugged. “I guess I was thinking about the last time I held your hand, that day in the back of my mother’s car.”</p>
<p>“And here I was thinking I hallucinated that.”</p>
<p>A little furrow appeared between her brows. “You thought you hallucinated holding my hand?”</p>
<p>“Yes. Though I guess the fact that my head was in <em>her</em> lap while it happened should’ve tipped me off that it wasn’t a fantasy.”</p>
<p>“What, if it was your fantasy, it would’ve been my lap?”</p>
<p>Red raised an eyebrow. </p>
<p>“Is that a surprise?” he asked; she looked away, almost embarrassed. ”I figured my mind must’ve been playing cruel tricks on me, tormenting me with something that I… so <em>desperately</em> wanted at my lowest point, only to snatch it away later with cold, hard reality. You haven’t been particularly cozy with me since that day, so that only reinforced my assumption that it hadn’t happened.” </p>
<p>He held up their hands. “This feels almost as unreal tonight, if I’m honest.”</p>
<p>It was true—Red had always relegated the idea of being with Lizzy this way more towards the realm of fantasy than reality, something he romanticized in his more fanciful moments ever since he entered her life and she had met him with such a fierce, challenging, breathtaking determination. </p>
<p>He imagined wooing her properly—offering her stability and support and a shoulder to cry on, spoiling her with fine foods and chocolates and wine, courting her like she deserved, like Tom Keen never could. He wanted to show her what it could be like to have a man truly treasure her, just as she was. When they made love for the first time, it would be something special, something gentle and slow and sweet, not full of fear or anger or stress. Creativity in the bedroom could come later, but Lizzy inspired Red’s hopeless, sappy romantic side that he’d hidden somewhere deep down inside him, and he longed to match the expectations that went along with it. </p>
<p>None of that had been possible, of course. The closest they’d ever come had been music and drinks and some small scraps of cobbled-together comfort during the most existentially terrifying moment in Lizzy’s life. </p>
<p>Red couldn’t build forever on something fraught like that. He couldn’t build forever with a target on his back, and he’d done everything in his power to make sure the target on Lizzy’s back disappeared—and to make sure no one ever even thought to try to paint one on Agnes. It was the best he could do at the time given the circumstances, though he wished he could’ve done more.</p>
<p>More.</p>
<p>Maybe Red <em>could’ve</em> done more, but hindsight made things obvious that were easy to miss while caught up in the chaos. It wasn’t as if he could go back and change anything. He would never know if the wall she had built between them back then would’ve been as impenetrable if he hadn’t started building one first. He’d never know if they could’ve avoided this… fracture… between them. He could only regret the things they hadn’t tried.</p>
<p>There were moments more recently that made Red feel like Lizzy might’ve been hinting around that she would be receptive to more overt overtures from him, but he hardly believed it. And he couldn’t afford to risk his heart when the possibility that he had misinterpreted her wishes was so strong. Their most recent falling out had made it seem as if his caution had paid off. </p>
<p>Until tonight, that is. Tonight was what happened when there was nowhere left to run or dodge or hide. They’d fought this moment for so long, but there was nothing more to fight. </p>
<p>Tonight, an unstoppable force met an immovable object. (Good luck figuring out which of them was which.)</p>
<p>Tonight, Lizzy pushed Red up against the wall at the top of the stairs and took his mouth again, deep and insistent and <em>very</em> difficult to misinterpret.</p>
<p>“Does that feel real?” she asked, staring at his lips like she wanted to devour him whole.</p>
<p>“Not in the slightest,” he said, framing her face with his hands. He drank in her expression as it shifted from bravado to concern.</p>
<p>“Red…” she whispered.</p>
<p>“It’s not my illness this time, if that’s what you’re worried about. I am fully aware of myself, my actions, and my surroundings. However…” He took a breath and it caught in his chest. “I still feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I still feel like you can’t possibly be here with any goal but to kill me.”</p>
<p>“What if tonight all I want from you is you? Would that be so bad?”</p>
<p>Red leaned in, slow and halting, and Lizzy tried to close the distance, but his hands on her face prevented it. “Promise me something.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Promise me you’ll remember this moment. What it felt like. How <em>you</em> felt.”</p>
<p>Lizzy’s cheeks flushed under his hands. “Of course I’ll remember. There’s no reason for me to forget.”</p>
<p>After a moment, Red nodded and then he kissed her, and she melted into the kiss, exhaling through her nose against his cheek, her arms quickly snaking around his neck. He backed her across the narrow hall, bracing himself with one forearm against the wall while they continued to kiss. Lizzy ran her hands over his body, everywhere and anywhere she could reach, encouraging him to touch her in return. She grasped his ass, pulling him against her, and he groaned, tearing his lips away from hers.</p>
<p>“The top of the stairs probably isn’t the best place for this,” he said.</p>
<p>“Right. Yeah. Let’s go.” </p>
<p>Lizzy shoved herself off the wall and tugged Red along with her. She barely waited for the bedroom door to close before she was on him again. She wasn’t gentle, but he didn’t want gentle. Not this time. Too much had happened to start at gentle. </p>
<p>The past few years had felt like an endless, harrowing race between them, but tonight felt more like a negotiation. Or a renegotiation. It wasn’t particularly romantic. It wasn’t his fantasy. (Or at least not <em>that</em> one.) They’d done far too much to each other for it to be anything as carefree as that anymore.</p>
<p>Lizzy’s teeth nipped at Red’s skin, her fingernails scratched and scraped, her hands roamed with little regard for how rough or eager she was being. Like she was chasing something, chasing <em>him</em>. She was going to extract <em>something</em> from him tonight—if not the whole truth, then something like it all the same. Somewhere deep down, she <em>did</em> still desperately want to know him, to <em>possess</em> him, through any means necessary. And through her fevered pursuit of victory, of pleasure, of pain, she had finally caught him.</p>
<p>Was any of this healthy? No. But quite frankly, Red couldn’t remember a time he was more turned on than he was at that very moment. Lizzy’s kisses left him breathless—the way she let his bottom lip drag between her teeth let loose a coiling, rising heat in his body that wouldn’t fade. As if being pinned against a wall wasn’t enough, Lizzy had already caught on to another of his greatest weakness in the bedroom: make him ache and he’d be putty in your hands.</p>
<p>“How do you want to do this?” he asked, his voice rough and foreign even to his own ears.</p>
<p>“What do you mean?”</p>
<p>“Exactly what I said. How do you want to do this? There are many highly appealing options. I’m open to... most things.”</p>
<p>“Most things?” Lizzy said slowly, befuddled by arousal or a genuine confusion, he couldn’t say. </p>
<p>Red led her to his dresser and opened the top drawer, moving aside a few stacks of handkerchiefs so he could pull a box forward from the back. He set the box on top of the dresser and stepped out of the way so she could open it.</p>
<p>She flipped open the lid and her eyes widened a bit. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you have a better collection than I do. These are all for you?”  </p>
<p>“I’ve been known to share on occasion. But yes.”</p>
<p>“Adventurous.”</p>
<p>“Eh.” He shrugged. “The way I figure it, the human body is capable of feeling pleasure in a wide variety of ways, so why should we squander that potential by sticking to the straight and narrow?”</p>
<p>Red came to stand close behind Lizzy.</p>
<p>“You said you wanted to fuck me…” he whispered, his lips brushing against the shell of her ear; she didn’t quite manage to stifle the shiver that ran through her body. “I want you to know I’m perfectly willing for that to mean anything you want it to.”</p>
<p>Lizzy turned her head to meet Red’s eyes over her shoulder. Maybe she hadn’t meant what she said quite like this. But she didn’t seem averse to it, just surprised. She ran her fingers over the array of toys and Red’s heart sped up in anticipation when she came to a stop on his favorite.</p>
<p>“Strip,” she said in a straightforward tone as she spun around to face him.</p>
<p>“All at once, or…?”</p>
<p>“No.” She slipped her jacket from her shoulders and tossed it aside. “An even trade. A jacket for a jacket. A shirt for a shirt.”</p>
<p>“And everything in between?”</p>
<p>“We’ll iron out the details as we go.” She drew the backs of her knuckles down the center of his chest and then twisted the top button of his vest out of its button hole. “Vest for hoodie,” she said, before unzipping said hoodie, all the while watching as he worked the rest of his vest buttons loose. </p>
<p> Unbuckling his belt, he pulled it free, careful to slip it from his leather holster so he could set his gun down, and then he took off his watch, too, adding it to the growing collection on the dresser, before he opened his trousers enough to easily tug his shirttails out. </p>
<p>Lizzy reached out and took his tie by the knot, tugged him a little closer, close enough for their noses to brush, and then used her other hand to pull the other end of the tie free, undoing the knot. She left the tie loose around his neck, ran her hands down his shirt, slow and meandering, until she found the bottom button and began working her way back up, undoing them as she went.</p>
<p>Red closed the distance between them and she let him, parting her lips and taking him in, allowing his exploration of her mouth to continue only until she finished with his shirt. She pulled back with a gasp to admire her handiwork.</p>
<p>Red couldn’t look away while she studied his body, couldn’t help but stare at her kiss-swollen lips, the hunger in her eyes, the aroused flush to her skin. She placed her hands flat in the middle of his chest and slid them up over his pecks under the unbuttoned shirt, spreading her fingers through his chest hair. She brushed a thumb over one of his nipples and his cock twitched in his open trousers, his excitement all the more obvious with them barely clinging to his hips.</p>
<p>Suddenly, Lizzy took hold of the sides of his unbuttoned shirt and his undone tie, and pulled him in for another kiss; she walked him back until his legs hit the bed frame and then gave him a firm shove, causing him sit almost reflexively.</p>
<p>She looked him up and down, lazy and deliberate, taking in the picture he made—breathing heavily, half-undone, and very, very aroused. </p>
<p>“What next?” he asked.</p>
<p>She took hold of him under the chin, angling his face so he couldn’t look anywhere but directly back at her.</p>
<p>“I think I want to have you at my mercy. I think… I think I always feel like I’m at yours.”</p>
<p>“I don’t—”</p>
<p>“I know. I know you don’t mean to make me feel that way. Sometimes good intentions aren’t enough,” she said.  </p>
<p>Red felt a pang in his chest that he had to fight the urge to soothe physically. “I understand.”</p>
<p>Satisfied, she gave his jaw a quick, affectionate squeeze and said, “Tell me if I go too far.”</p>
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